Silent Tears
by ScintillatingTart
Summary: Too many questions, no answers. Alternative season 3. (Rated T, Carson/Hughes)


I don't own Downton Abbey. My bank account will attest to this very strongly.

Silent Tears  
by ScintillatingTart  
August - September 2015

* * *

One word spoken, a confirmation, bleak and full of all the pain and suffering she would have to endure. It was cancer: the tests had been conclusive. Elsie Hughes had, now, a finite window of time in which to live her life. Oh, yes, of course one knows from the time that they are young that one was born and one day would die – but one generally expected to be old and grey (she conveniently ignored her age and the numerous grey hairs that had crept into her carefully maintained chignon) when they passed. Not facing down the spectre of their misspent, squandered youth far before their time. And not facing the cruel, mocking of a disease that carried such a potent death sentence.

Where was her happy ending? Where was her chance to make a difference in someone's life? Where was her chance to love and be loved in return by a man who had nothing to sacrifice by adoring her? Why had she never gone looking for a better life than the one she had managed to procure for herself through blood, sweat, and more than a few tears? Who would look after Becky when she was gone?

Too many questions, no answers.

She sat, staring at Dr. Clarkson in shock; she was too stunned by the confirmation to reach too deeply into the well of bitterness that was slowly seeping into her heart.

Cancer.

She would die, and no one would remember that she had lived. That she had once been worthy of love, of attention, of notice…

She bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth.

How on god's green earth would she tell Mr. Carson?

* * *

In the end, she only told two people about her evil, insidious disease: Mrs. Patmore and Lady Grantham. One because she needed a friend, the other because she needed to make arrangements. The offer of treatment on the part of the Granthams still held true, but Elsie had been forced to explain that the cancer was not localized merely to the tumor, but had already spread – and any treatments would merely prolong the agony that would come as her body declined.

She announced her retirement on a Thursday, two weeks after coming home from Downton Hospital with her dismal prognosis. She would retire to a small cottage on the grounds of the Abbey, close enough for Mrs. Patmore or Daisy to bring meals, and Dr. Clarkson would be on retainer for her as he would have done for any of the employees still beneath the big house's roof. Arrangements had been made to continue her sister's care – the sheer emotion in Her Ladyship's boudoir when she had brought it up had been overwhelming, stifling, terrifying – for many, many years. His Lordship had been the one to suggest a trust fund and Her Ladyship had been more than willing to just throw money into the pit, so long as it accumulated interest and provided adequately for Becky's care.

She would never forget the pain, the startled hurt, in Mr. Carson's eyes when she announced casually over dinner that she would be retiring as soon as Mrs. Bute could come up from Grantham House. It was a face of betrayal, of moments not lived, of a thousand wants and wishes never voiced or granted. And it hurt her deeply to continue smiling and talking over the food as if she were excited to be going into a rapid state of decline.

He cornered her in her sitting room that night, no wine or sherry in hand, no peace offerings, and the only question on his lips was, "Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Hughes?"

Why had she not told him of what? Her retirement that was anything but joyous or comfortable? Her illness which was eating her alive from the inside out? Her love which was so strong as to be overwhelming? How could she tell him of any of those things? She was a coward, craven and yellow, terrified to share the burden – and such a burden it was – with anyone, lest they let her down, lest they leave her alone again to shoulder it all on her own. Better to be alone than to be stricken down by unwanted sentimentality and devotion.

"Because I did not want to hurt you, Mr. Carson," was what she said. It wasn't what she meant, however – it could never be what she meant to say to him. She meant to say so many things to him, crying her love, her devotion, but it was not fair to deliver unto him burdens as they fell from her lips. So silently aching in her chest, the words formed and were never let loose.

"Your leaving hurts me," he muttered, the words barely spoken into the aching, chasm of a void between them. And she could not say how much leaving would hurt her; it was unthinkable to walk that path now, to give her desires and wants power over her when it was so close to the end.

So, aching, exhausted, and ever so angry with herself – and in small measure, him, because why did she love him so? – she watched him walk away, close the door, and in the quietest voice she could manage – little more than a breath from her sinning, darkened heart – she murmured a prayer that he would live a long life and be happy without her.

She left the Abbey on a Monday.

* * *

All was quiet in the cottage, aside from the thrice a day meal deliveries from Daisy and Mrs. Patmore. Elsie mostly sat in the rocking chair in the living room, an afghan around her, staring off into space. If she was feeling rather more focused, she attempted to read: usually some kind of gothic trash novel that she adored so much and Mr. Carson loathed, rolling his eyes in derision. She did adore The Turn of the Screw in rather an alarming fashion, but only because she saw herself as the housekeeper keen to haunt Downton Abbey and terrify the young maids and footmen back into their place.

Of course, those wicked thoughts seemed to be on her mind more and more, now, as she pondered the legacy she would leave behind. Soon enough, the staff would turn over and there would be no one left to remember Mrs. Hughes and her stern but kindly ways; soon, they would all die or leave, and no one would be any the wiser about the woman who had helped hold things together through thick and thin, grasping at the ties to bind wildly, blindly, with her small hands, clinging to a way that would soon be obsolete.

She felt very small, very insignificant, so very lost.

One day, she didn't get out of bed. All of the hopelessness, the sadness, the grief for a life she would never, could never, lead, overwhelmed her and she remained in her nightdress and dressing gown, ignoring the sounds of Daisy and Mrs. Patmore downstairs. And when Mrs. Patmore knocked gently on the door and said, "Elsie, love, I brought you roast chicken for dinner…" she ignored that, too, rolling away to the edge of the bed and wishing it was all over already. That she did not have to face them anymore; that her heart did not ache so very much from the want to live when all hope was dwindling to a finite loss.

She wished for the first time that she could merely leave the world and hoped that no one would miss her very much. The alternative was unthinkable, far more painful than she deserved to wish upon anyone, let alone herself.

She didn't know how long she lay abed – two days, three? a week? – before the door creaked open and footsteps crossed the floorboards. They were heavy, familiar, and she could not turn his way, nor look at him; for what would he think of her giving up? What would he think of her – how could he ever care for her – if he saw her such as she was now, her skin sweaty and grimy, her hair tangled, greasy and matted even in its long plait, her eyes sunken, her skin sallow and gaunt as she quickly was eaten alive by her cancer? How could she possibly face him? She had not told him she was ill at all, had sworn Beryl Patmore to secrecy, so why had he come at all?

"Mrs. Hughes," Mr. Carson said in a tone that was meant to be gentle but fell very short of the mark. It made her feel that much worse to know that he was concerned, that he was trying to help – he was only trying to help her, she scolded herself. "You've not touched your meals in days."

"I'm not hungry," she lied, her voice hoarse from disuse aside from the sudden outbursts of furious whispering at herself, followed by tears. Impotent, shameful tears that she could no more stop or hold at bay than she could control the tides or the sunrise and sunset. In reality, her belly churned, begging, pleading for nourishment, but she could not bear to feed the monster within her. She could not fathom keeping a single bite of food down, though her body screamed for it, begged for mercy, pleading and shouting with a pained growl of need.

She wanted him to leave. She wanted him to go, to leave her alone to face her fate. A fate which he had not been made privy to by her own lies of omission. She was trying to protect him; she had already failed so badly at protecting herself. Her love for him was absolute, a thing pure and untainted, and he must never know – he would do the honorable thing and throw himself on his sword… or write her off entirely. No, the options were untenable, and she must not let him…

"I've brought some broth and a bit of bread and butter," he said, his voice wavering ever so slightly. She knew that sound from years of closeness; he was terrified of her rejection, of her pushing him away completely. And wasn't that what she meant to do? Dear god in heaven, why must everything be so difficult? Why could it not be cut and dried, simple and plain for once?

Because you love him, a tiny voice in the back of her head taunted her. Because you don't really want to die this way, alone and afraid. You don't want to die at all, Elsie Hughes. You want to live and you want to be his and his alone. All you have left to trust is him.

It took a long few minutes, but she rolled to face him. She struggled, fought valiantly, but gave in when he settled in at her bedside and spoon fed her bone broth and bread.

He retired on a Sunday. They were married on a Monday. Things were implied, words meaning less and less between them as they took up a mantle of togetherness, of burdens shared. They fought loudly about some things – why she had not told him that she was ill, why he had not told her that he loved her, why neither had reached into the void and grasped for something so important as the love they felt now so desperately – and quietly about others. There were no sweeping declarations of love, but merely a quiet, sedate holding of hands and a promise that she might warm her feet on his calves in the middle of the night… and that he might hum sweet songs against her hair as they went to sleep.

She went back to sitting in her rocking chair with her books and her knitting. She started a scarf for him, something to remember her by.

She did not fool herself into thinking that he loved her quite the same way she loved him, but he did treat her with the gravest concern, and he had shackled himself to her knowing full well that her death was imminent.

Mayhaps that was the greater love, then?

* * *

She watched him puttering with the flowers he'd brought in from the garden; he was puttering and singing softly to himself. She did not recognize the tune, but his hands moved with the skill and talent of a man worshiping the beauty before him, and Elsie knew that he had brought the flowers inside for her since she was too weak to go outside. She had succumbed to a summer cold and sneezes and fits of coughing racked her body far too often. Dr. Clarkson had warned that it could change to pneumonia and she might be done for in that case; Charles had sputtered and turned colors before he stormed out of the room. But thus far, it was only a cold.

"Those are lovely," Elsie murmured, drawing his attention to the settee where she had taken up residence. "Thank you, Charles." She lifted her hand to her brow and closed her eyes again. It was easy, far too easy, to give in and sleep. The day would come when she would close her eyes forever. "I know I've not made it easy for you –"

"Stuff and nonsense," he replied firmly. "We have trod the boards together, you and I – what is ridiculous is your thought that I would not come after you when I dragged it out of Beryl why you had left in the first place."

She opened one eye. "And why should you have?" Elsie asked, her voice sharper than she meant it to be. "We were co-workers, not lovers of undying passion and –"

"We never had the opportunity to afford to risk our livelihoods and our way of life to become lovers," he pointed out gruffly. "I was meant to die in harness and haunt the Abbey forevermore, frightening the family for years to come. I am certain you felt the same way."

She closed her eye again, weary from the effort of holding everything back from him. How could he possibly ever understand how much she had come to care for him? How it hurt her deep in her veins like a living thing, this knowledge that she would leave him. "I thought I would die alone," Elsie confessed very quietly, "and I would come back and haunt you. Make you rest and do your ledgers for you or something."

He paused in arranging the flowers; she heard him still, the leaves in his hands still crinkling though they did not move of his volition. "Oh, Mrs. Hughes," he sighed, his voice as low and full of emotion as she'd ever heard it. "We've both been such utter fools."

Her heart skipped a beat. But no, surely… surely, the world could not be such a cruel mistress to give her something so sweet, so sacred, only to tear it away again. Surely, she was misinterpreting his words into something that she had longed to hear, rather than believing in the reality that was in front of her, stark and unrelenting. Leaving him would be difficult enough without her feelings being reciprocated –

A sudden flurry of motion assailed her ears; leaves rustling, stems clashing together with the noises of grasses and soft tearing, clinking as they went into the glass vase in a hurried fashion, the fabric of his suit crinkling, giving, straining, relaxing with his movement, his footsteps across the floorboards, uneven, creaking, heavier in places as the nails and boards warped beneath his weight. Then he was beside her, drawing up the stool he kept by the divan so he might read to her as the daylight escaped them and candles became necessary, the legs scraping across the floor, creaking and groaning. Her eyes flew open when he took her hand in his, his warmth a contrast to her painfully cold skin, and she swallowed hard upon looking him in the eyes, seeing everything she felt so deeply reflected back at her like ripples in a pond; years of restraint and propriety fell away as quickly as they had been built up between them, a new-found courage, determination plumbing like a well-spring between them.

"I have been such a fool," he whispered, his booming voice softer, gentler, than she had ever heard it before. "I should have – years ago –"

Elsie leaned into his touch, allowing it to comfort her. "No more regrets," she whispered.

* * *

The pain had become unbearable; Elsie spent her hours moaning and whimpering through the words her husband read off the pages – Shakespeare and Milton, Dickens and Bronte, Austen and Carroll… Everything had blended together into an endless sea of words and concepts bordered with a red thread of agony. And she knew the end was near. So near she could reach out and touch it if she could only lift her hand to grasp it.

She knew she might hold on to her fading life for so much time yet, but she would not be herself. She would no longer be Elsie Hughes Carson; she would be a wraith, a failing grey leaf that had held to the last breath of autumn before falling in despair onto the dead grass of winter. Dr. Clarkson whispered to Charles in hushed tones that she might not hear, but she knew; from the moment he dosed her with morphine and the drug had done nothing to dull the pain, she knew her time was drawing to a close.

Months: she had loved Charles what seemed like a lifetime, but only months had she been able to call him her own. Only months had she grasped for happiness that she might have had for years; she had said 'no more regrets', but she carried them in her heart like a reason to keep living. She wanted to hold him, to assure him that he was loved, but she could barely open her eyes.

He sat by their bedside, never complaining, never wishing aloud that he was anywhere but at her side; she knew, however, that he would want to be anywhere but there, watching her rapid decline. Her heart was full, between love and sorrow that he would be left alone when her trial was finished.

"Charlie," she croaked, struggling to touch him, to feel his warmth against her cold, "I love you." It was the first time, the only time she would ever say it aloud to him.

She died on a Friday, his hand tightly grasping hers, comforting her as she breathed her last. In life, they had not spoken selfishly of themselves – not even to one another – and in death only would they begin to do so, begging comfort and assurance that they had really, truly loved. That their frantic touches beneath the duvet, their kisses, desperate and longing for more that could never be given, had not been a dream that could not be grasped.

Elsie Carson died knowing she had been loved.

fin


End file.
